Famine and misery at Paris.—Steps taken by the government to feed the capital.—Monthly cost to the Treasury.—Cold and hunger in the winter of 1794-1795.—Quality of the bread.—Daily rations diminished.—Suffering, especially of the populace.—Excessive physical suffering, despair, suicides, and deaths from exhaustion in 1795.—Government dinners and suppers.—Number of lives lost through want and war.—Socialism as applied, and its effects on comfort, well-being and mortality. Anything that a totalitarian government may do to ensure that the capital is supplied with food is undertaken and carried out by this one, for here is its seat, and one more degree of dearth in Paris would overthrow it. Each week, on reading the daily reports of its agents,42132 it finds itself on the verge of explosion; twice, in Germinal and Prairial, a popular outbreak does overthrow it for a few hours, and, if it maintains itself, it is on the condition of either giving the needy a piece of bread or the hope of getting it. Consequently, military posts are spaced out around Paris, up to eighteen leagues off, on all the highways; permanent patrols in correspondence with each other to urge on the wagoners and draft relays of horses on the spot. Escorts dispatched from Paris to meet convoys;42133 requisition "all the carts and all the horses whatever to effect transportation in preference to any other work or service." All communes traversed by a highway are ordered to put rubble and manure on the bad spots and cover the whole way with a layer of soil, so that the horses may drag their loads in spite of the slippery road. The national agents are ordered to draft the necessary number of men to break the ice around the water-mills.42134 A requisition is made for "all the barley throughout the length and breadth of the Republic, "this must be utilized to produce "the mixture for making bread," while the brewers are forbidden to use barley in the manufacture of beer; the starch makers are forbidden to convert potatoes into starch, with penalty of death against all offenders "as destroyers of alimentary produce;" the breweries and starch-factories42135 are to be closed until further notice. Paris must have grain, no matter of what kind, no matter how, and at any cost, not merely in the following week, but to-morrow, this very day, because hunger chews and swallows everything, and it will not wait.—Once the grain is obtained, a price must be fixed which people can pay. Now, the difference between the selling and cost price is enormous; it keeps on increasing as the assignat declines and it is the government which pays this. "You furnish bread at three sous," said Dubois-CrancÉ, FlorÉal 16, year III,42136 "and it costs you four francs. Paris consumes 8,000 quintals of meal daily, which expenditure alone amounts to 1,200 millions per annum." Seven months later, when a bag of flour brings 13,000 francs, the same expenditure reaches 546 millions per month.—Under the ancient rÉgime, Paris, although overgrown, continued to be an useful organism; if it absorbed much, it elaborated more; its productiveness compensated for what it consumed, and, every year, instead of exhausting the public treasury it poured 77 millions into it. The new rÉgime has converted it into a monstrous canker in the very heart of France, a devouring parasite which, through its six hundred thousand leeches, drains its surroundings for a distance of forty leagues, consumes one-half the annual revenue of the State, and yet still remains emaciated in spite of the sacrifices made by the treasury it depletes and the exhaustion of the provinces which supply it with food. Always the same alimentary system, the same long lines of people waiting at, and before, dawn in every quarter of Paris, in the dark, for a long time, and often to no purpose, subject to the brutalities of the strong and the outrages of the licentious! On the 9th of Thermidor, the daily trot of the multitude in quest of food has lasted uninterruptedly for seventeen months, accompanied with outrages of the worst kind because there is less terror and less submissiveness, with more obstinacy because provisions at free sale are dearer, with greater privation because the ration distributed is smaller, and with more sombre despair because each household, having consumed its stores, has nothing of its own to make up for the insufficiencies of public charity.—And to cap it all, the winter of 1794-1795 is so cold42137 that the Seine freezes and people cross the Loire on foot. Rafts no longer arrive and, to obtain fire-wood, it is necessary "to cut down trees at Boulogne, Vincennes, VerriÈres, St. Cloud, Meudon and two other forests in the vicinity." Fuel costs "four hundred francs per cord of wood, forty sous for a bushel of charcoal, twenty sous for a small basket. The needy are seen in the streets sawing the wood of their bedsteads to cook with and to keep from freezing." On the resumption of transportation by water amongst the cakes of ice "rafts are sold as fast as the raftsmen can haul the wood out of the water, the people being obliged to pass three nights at the landing to get it, each in turn according to his number." "On PluviÔse 3 at least two thousand persons are at the Louviers landing," each with his card allowing him four sticks at fifteen sous each. Naturally, there is pulling, hauling, tumult and a rush; "the dealers take to flight for fear, and the inspectors come near being murdered;" they get away along with the police commissioner and "the public helps itself." Likewise, the following day, there is "an abominable pillage;" the gendarmes and soldiers placed there to maintain order, "make a rush for the wood and carry it away together with the crowd." Bear in mind that on this day the thermometer is sixteen degrees below zero, that one hundred, two hundred other lines of people likewise stand waiting at the doors of bakers and butchers, enduring the same cold, and that they have already endured it and will yet endure it a month and more. Words are wanting to describe the sufferings of these long lines of motionless beings, during the night, at daybreak, standing there five or six hours, with the blast driving through their rags and their feet freezing.—VentÔse is beginning, and the ration of bread is reduced to a pound and a half;42138 VentÔse ends, and the ration of bread, kept at a pound and a half for the three hundred and twenty-four laborers, falls to one pound; in fact, a great many get none at all, many only a half and a quarter of a pound. Germinal follows and the Committee of Public Safety, finding that its magazines are giving out, limits all rations to a quarter of a pound. Thereupon, on the 12th of Germinal, an insurrection of workmen and women breaks out; the Convention is invaded and liberated by military force. Paris is declared in a state of siege and the government, again in the saddle, tightens the reins. Thenceforth, the ration of meat served out every four or five days, is a quarter of a pound; bread averages every day, sometimes five, sometimes six and sometimes seven ounces, at long intervals eight ounces, often three, two and one ounce and a half, or even none at all; while this bread, black and "making mischief," becomes more and more worthless and detestable.42139 People who are well off live on potatoes, but only for them, for, in the middle of Germinal, these cost fifteen francs the bushel and, towards the end, twenty francs; towards the end of Messidor, forty-five francs; in the first month of the Directory, one hundred and eighty francs, and then two hundred and eighty-four francs, whilst other produce goes up at the same rates.—After the abolition of the "maximum" the evil springs not from a lack of provisions, but from their dearness: the shops are well supplied. Whoever comes with a full purse gets what he wants42140: The former rich, the property owners and large capitalists, may eat on the condition that they hand their bundles of assignats over, that they withdrawing their last louis from its hiding-place, that they sell their jewelry, clocks, furniture and clothes. And the nouveaux rich, the speculators, the suppliers, the happy and extravagant robbers, spend four hundred, one thousand, three thousand, then five thousand francs for their dinner, and revel in the great eating establishments on fine wines and exquisite cheer: the burden of the scarcity is transferred to other shoulders.—At present, the class which suffers, and which suffers beyond all bounds of patience is, together with employees and people with small incomes,42141 the crowd of workmen, the City plebeians, the low Parisian populace * which lives from day to day, * which is Jacobin at heart, * which made the Revolution in order to better itself, * which finds itself worse off, * which gets up one insurrection more on the 1st of Prairial, * which forcibly enters the Tuileries yelling "Bread and the Constitution of '93," * which installs itself as sovereign in the Convention, * which murders the Representative FÉraud, * which decrees a return to Terror, but which, put down by the National Guard, disarmed and forced back into lasting obedience, has only to submit to the consequences of its own outrages, the socialism it has itself instituted and the economical system it itself has organized. Because the workers of Paris have been usurpers and tyrants they are now beggars. Owing to the ruin brought on proprietors and capitalists by them, individuals can no longer employ them. Owing to the ruin they have brought on the Treasury, the State can provide them with only the semblance of charity, and hence, while all are compelled to go hungry, a great many die, and many commit suicide. * On Germinal 6th, "Section of the Observatory,"42142 at the distribution, "forty-one persons had been without bread; several pregnant women desired immediate confinement so as to destroy their infants; others asked for knives to stab themselves." * On Germinal 8th," a large number of persons who had passed the night at the doors of the bakeries were obliged to leave without getting any bread." * On Germinal 24th, "the police commissioner of the Arsenal section states that many become ill for lack of food, and that he buries quite a number.... The same day, he has heard of five or six citizens, who, finding themselves without bread, and unable to get other food, throw themselves into the Seine." * Germinal 27, "the women say that they feel so furious and are in such despair on account of hunger and want that they must inevitably commit some act of violence.... In the section of 'Les Amis de la Patrie,' one half have no bread.... Three persons tumbled down through weakness on the Boulevard du Temple." * FlorÉal 2, "most of the workmen in the 'RÉpublique' section are leaving Paris on account of the scarcity of bread." * FlorÉal 5, "eighteen out of twenty-four inspectors state that patience is exhausted and that things are coming to an end." * FlorÉal 14, "the distribution is always unsatisfactory on account of the four-ounce ration; two thirds of the citizens do without it. One woman, on seeing the excitement of her husband and her four children who had been without bread for two days, trailed through the gutter tearing her hair and striking her head; she then got up in a state of fury and attempted to drown herself." * FlorÉal 20, "all exclaim that they cannot live on three ounces of bread, and, again, of such bad quality. Mothers and pregnant women fall down with weakness." * FlorÉal 21, "the inspectors state that they encounter many persons in the streets who have fallen through feebleness and inanition." * FlorÉal 23, "a citoyenne who had no bread for her child tied it to her side and jumped into the river. Yesterday, an individual named Mottez, in despair through want, cut his throat." * FlorÉal 25, "several persons, deprived of any means of existence, gave up in complete discouragement, and fell down with weakness and exhaustion.... In the 'Gravilliers' section, two men were found dead with inanition.... The peace officers report the decease of several citizens; one cut his throat, while another was found dead in his bed." FlorÉal 28, "numbers of people sink down for lack of something to eat; yesterday, a man was found dead and others exhausted through want." * Prairial 24, "Inspector Laignier states that the indigent are compelled to seek nourishment in the piles of garbage on the corners." * Messidor 1,42143 "the said Picard fell through weakness at ten o'clock in the morning in the rue de la Loi, and was only brought to at seven o'clock in the evening; he was carried to the hospital on a hand-barrow." * Messidor 11, "There is a report that the number of people trying to drown themselves is so great that the nets at St. Cloud scarcely suffice to drag them out of the water." * Messidor 19, "A man was found on the corner of a street just dead with hunger." * Messidor 27, "At four o'clock in the afternoon, Place Maubert, a man named Marcelin, employed in the Jardin des Plantes, fell down through starvation and died while assistance was being given to him." On the previous evening, the anniversary of the taking of the Bastille, a laborer on the Pont-au-Change, says "I have eaten nothing all day. ''Another replies: "I have not been home because I have nothing to give to my wife and children, dying with hunger." About the same date, a friend of Mallet-Dupan writes to him "that he is daily witness to people amongst the lower classes dying of inanition in the streets; others, and principally women, have nothing but garbage to live on, scraps of refuse vegetables and the blood running out of the slaughter houses. Laborers, generally, work on short time on account of their lack of strength and of their exhaustion for want of food."42144— Thus ends the rule of the Convention. Well has it looked out for the interests of the poor! According to the reports of its own inspectors, "famished stomachs on all sides cry vengeance, beat to arms and sound the tocsin of alarm42145.... Those who have to dwell daily on the sacrifices they make to keep themselves alive declare that there is no hope except in death." Are they going to be relieved by the new government which the Convention imposes on them with thunders of artillery and in which it perpetuates itself?42146— * Brumaire 28, "Most of the workmen in the 'Temple' and 'Gravilliers' sections have done no work for want of bread." * Brumaire 24, "Citizens of all classes refuse to mount guard because they have nothing to eat." * Brumaire 25, "In the 'Gravilliers' section the women say that they have sold all that they possessed, while others, in the 'Faubourg-Antoine' section, declare that it would be better to be shot down." * Brumaire 30, "A woman beside herself came and asked a baker to kill her children as she had nothing to give them to eat." * Frimaire 1, 2, 3, and 4, "In many of the sections bread is given out only in the evening, in others at one o'clock in the morning, and of very poor quality.... Several sections yesterday had no bread." * Frimaire 7, the inspectors declare that "the hospitals soon will not be vast enough to hold the sick and the wretched." * Frimaire 14, At the central market a woman nursing her child sunk down with inanition." A few days before this, "a man fell down from weakness, on his way to Bourg l'AbbÉ." "All our reports," say the district administrators, "resound with shrieks of despair." People are infatuated; "it seems to us that a crazy spirit prevails universally, we often encounter people in the street who, although alone, gesticulate and talk to themselves aloud." "How many times," writes a Swiss traveller,42147 who lived in Paris during the latter half of 1795, "how often have I chanced to encounter men sinking through starvation, scarcely able to stand up against a post, or else down on the ground and unable to get up for want of strength!" A journalist states that he saw "within ten minutes, along the street, seven poor creatures fall on account of hunger, a child die on its mother's breast which was dry of milk, and a woman struggling with a dog near a sewer to get a bone away from him."42148 Meissner never leaves his hotel without filling his pockets with pieces of the national bread. "This bread," he says, "which the poor would formerly have despised, I found accepted with the liveliest gratitude, and by well educated persons;" the lady who contended with the dog for the bone was a former nun, without either parents or friends and everywhere repulsed." "I still hear with a shudder," says Meissner, "the weak, melancholy voice of a well-dressed woman who stopped me in the rue du Bac, to tell me in accents indicative both of shame and despair: 'Ah, Sir, do help me! I am not an outcast. I have some talent—you may have seen some of my works in the salon. I have had nothing to eat for two days and I am crazy for want of food.'" Again, in June, 1796, the inspectors state that despair and despondency have reached the highest point, only one cry being heard-misery!.... Our reports all teem with groans and complaints.. .. Pallor and suffering are stamped on all faces.... Each day presents a sadder and more melancholy aspect." And repeatedly,42149 they sum up their scattered observations in a general statement: * "A mournful silence, the deepest distress on every countenance; * the most intense hatred of the government in general developed in all conversations; * contempt for all existing authority; * an insolent luxuriousness, insulting to the wretchedness of the poor rentiers who expire with hunger in their garrets, no longer possessing the courage to crawl to the Treasury and get the wherewithal to prolong their misery for a few days; * the worthy father of a family daily deciding what article of furniture he will sell to make up for what is lacking in his wages that he may buy a half-pound of bread; * every sort of provision increasing in price sixty times an hour; * the smallest business dependent on the fall of assignats; * intriguers of all parties overthrowing each other only to get offices; * the intoxicated soldier boasting of the services he has rendered and is to render, and abandoning himself shamelessly to every sort of debauchery; * commercial houses transformed into dens of thieves; * rascals become traders and traders become rascals; the most sordid cupidity and a mortal egoism—such is the picture presented by Paris."42150 One group is wanting in this picture, that of the governors who preside over this wretchedness, which group remains in the background; one might say that it was so designed and composed by some great artist, a lover of contrasts, an inexorable logician, whose invisible hand traces human character unvaryingly, and whose mournful irony unfailingly depicts side by side, in strong relief, the grotesqueness of folly and the seriousness of death. How many perished on account of this misery? Probably more than a million persons.42151— Try to take in at a glance the extraordinary spectacle presented on twenty-six thousand square leagues of territory: * The immense multitude of the starving in town and country, * the long lines of women for three years waiting for bread in all the cities, * this or that town of twenty-three thousand souls in which one-third of the population dies in the hospitals in three months, * the crowds of paupers at the poor-houses, * the file of poor wretches entering and the file of coffins going out, * the asylums deprived of their property, overcrowded with the sick, unable to feed the multitude of foundlings pining away in their cradles the very first week, their little faces in wrinkles like those of old men, * the malady of want aggravating all other maladies, the long suffering of a persistent vitality amidst pain and which refuses to succumb, the final death-rattle in a garret or in a ditch. Contrast this with this the small, powerful, triumphant group of Jacobins which, having understood how to place themselves in the good places, is determined to stay there at any cost.—About ten o'clock in the morning,42152 CambacÉrÈs, president of the Committee of Public Safety, is seen entering its hall in the Pavillon de l'EgalitÉ. He is a large, cautious and shrewd personage who will, later on, become arch-chancellor of the Empire and famous for his epicurean inventions and other peculiar tastes revived from antiquity. Scarcely seated, he orders an ample pat-au-feu to be placed on the chimney hearth and, on the table, "fine wine and fine white bread; three articles," says a guest, "not to be found elsewhere in all Paris." Between twelve and two o'clock, his colleagues enter the room in turn, take a plate of soup and a slice of meat, swallow some wine, and then proceed, each to his bureau, to receive his coterie, giving this one an office and compelling another to pay up, looking all the time after his own special interests. At this moment, especially, towards the close of the Convention, there are no public interests, all interests being private and personal.—In the mean time, the deputy in charge of provisions, Roux de la Haute Marne, an unfrocked Benedictine, formerly a terrorist in the provinces, subsequently the protÉgÉ and employee of FouchÉ, with whom he is to be associated in the police department, keeps the throng of women in check which daily resorts to the Tuileries to beg for bread. He is well adapted for this duty, being tall, chubby, ornamental, and with vigorous lungs. He has taken his office in the right place, in the attic of the palace, at the top of long, narrow and steep stairs, so that the line of women stretching up between the two walls, piled one above the other, necessarily becomes immovable. With the exception of the two or three at the front, no one has her hands free to grab the haranguer by the throat and close the oratorical stop-cock. He can spout his tirades accordingly with impunity, and for an indefinite time. On one occasion, his sonorous jabber rattles away uninterruptedly from the top to the bottom of the staircase, from nine o'clock in the morning to five o'clock in the afternoon. Under such a voluble shower, his hearers become weary and end by going home.—About nine or ten o'clock in the evening, the Committee of Public Safety reassembles, but not to discuss business. Danton and La RÉvelliÈre preach in vain; each is too egoistic and too worn-out; they let the rein slacken on CambacÉrÈs. As to him, he would rather keep quiet and drag the cart no longer; but there are two things necessary which he must provide for on pain of death.—"It will not do," says he in plaintive tones, "to keep on printing the assignats at night which we want for the next day. If that lasts, ma foi, we run the risk of being strung up at a lantern...Go and find Hourier-Eloi, as he has charge of the finances, and tell him that we entreat him to keep us a-going for a fortnight or eighteen days longer, when the executive Directory will come in and do what it pleases." "But food—shall we have enough for to-morrow? "Aha, I don't know—I'll send for our colleague Roux, who will post us on that point." Roux enters, the official spokesman, the fat, jovial tamer of the popular dog. "Well, Roux, how do we stand about supplying Paris with food?" "The supply, citizen President, is just as abundant as ever, two ounces per head,—at least for most of the sections." "Go to the devil with your abundant supply! You'll have our heads off!" All remain silent, for this possible dÉnouement sets them to thinking. Then, one of them exclaims: "President, are there any refreshments provided for us? After working so hard for so many days we need something to strengthen us!" "Why, yes; there is a good calf's-tongue, a large turbot, a large piece of pie and some other things." They cheer up, begin to eat and drink champagne, and indulge in drolleries. About eleven or twelve o'clock the members of other Committees come in; signatures are affixed to their various decrees, on trust, without reading them over. They, in their turn, sit down at the table and the conclave of sovereign bellies digests without giving itself further trouble about the millions of stomachs that are empty. 4201 (return) 4202 (return) 4203 (return) 4204 (return) 4205 (return) 4206 (return) 4207 (return) 4208 (return) 4209 (return) 4210 (return) 4211 (return) 4212 (return) 4213 (return) 4214 (return) 4215 (return) 4216 (return) 4217 (return) 4218 (return) 4219 (return) 4220 (return) 4221 (return) 4222 (return) 4223 (return) 4224 (return) 4225 (return) 4226 (return) 4227 (return) 4228 (return) 4229 (return) 4230 (return) 4231 (return) 4232 (return) 4233 (return) 4234 (return) 4235 (return) 4236 (return) 4237 (return) 4238 (return) 4239 (return) 4240 (return) 4241 (return) 4242 (return) 4243 (return) 4244 (return) 4245 (return) 4246 (return) 4247 (return) 4248 (return) 4249 (return) 4250 (return) 4251 (return) 4252 (return) 4253 (return) 4254 (return) 4255 (return) 4256 (return) 4257 (return) 4258 (return) 4259 (return) 4260 (return) 4261 (return) 4262 (return) 4263 (return) 4264 (return) 4265 (return) 4266 (return) 4267 (return) 4268 (return) 4269 (return) 4270 (return) 4271 (return) 4272 (return) 4273 (return) 4274 (return) 4275 (return) 4276 (return) 4277 (return) 4278 (return) 4279 (return) 4280 (return) 4281 (return) 4282 (return) 4283 (return) 4284 (return) 4285 (return) 4286 (return) 4287 (return) 4288 (return) 4289 (return) 4290 (return) 4291 (return) 4292 (return) 4293 (return) 4294 (return) 4295 (return) 4296 (return) 4297 (return) 4298 (return) 4299 (return) 42100 (return) 42101 (return) 42102 (return) 42103 (return) 42104 (return) 42105 (return) 42106 (return) 42107 (return) 42108 (return) 42109 (return) 42110 (return) 42111 (return) 42112 (return) 42113 (return) 42114 (return) 42115 (return) 42116 (return) 42117 (return) 42118 (return) 42119 (return) 42120 (return) 42121 (return) 42122 (return) 42123 (return) 42124 (return) 42125 (return) 42126 (return) 42127 (return) 42128 (return) 42129 (return) 42130 (return) 42131 (return) 42132 (return) 42133 (return) 42134 (return) 42135 (return) 42136 (return) 42137 (return) 42138 (return) 42139 (return) 42140 (return) 42141 (return) "When I think of this royal outlay, as you call it, which makes me spend from18,000 to 20,000 francs for nothing, I wish the devil had the system.... 10,000 francs which I have scattered about the past fortnight, alarm and trouble me so much that I do not know how to calculate my income in this way. In three days the difference (in the value of assignats) has sent wood up from 4,200 to 6,500 francs, and extras in proportion so that, as I wrote you, a load piled up and put away costs me 7,100 francs. Every week now, the pot-au-feu and other meats for ragouts, without any butter, eggs and other details, cost from seven to eight hundred francs. Washing also goes up so fast that eight thousand francs do not suffice. All this puts me out of humor, while in all this expenditure I declare on my honor (je jure par la saine vÉritÉ de mon coeur) that for two years I have indulged no fancy of my own or spent anything except on household expenses. Nevertheless, I have urgent need of some things for which I should require piles of assignats."—We see by Beaumarchais' correspondence that one of his friends travels around in the environs of Paris to find bread. "It is said here (he writes from Soizy, June 5, 1795) that flour may be had at Briare. If this were so I would bargain with a reliable man there to carry it to you by water-carriage between Briare and Paris... In the mean time I do not despair of finding a loaf."—Letter of a friend of Beaumarchais: "This letter costs you at least one hundred francs, including paper, pen, ink, and lamp-oil. For economy's sake I write it in your house."] 42142 (return) 42143 (return) 42144 (return) 42145 (return) 42146 (return) 42147 (return) 42148 (return) 42149 (return) 42150 (return) 42151 (return) 2nd. During the whole of the Directory episode, privation lasted and the rate of mortality rose very high, especially for sick children, the infirm and the aged, because the convention had confiscated the possessions of the hospitals and public charity was almost null. For example, at Lyons, "The Asylums having been deprived of sisters of charity during years II., III. and IV., and most of year V., the children gathered into them could neither be fed nor suckled and the number that perished was frightful." ("Statistique du Rhone," by Vernier, prefet, year X.)—In Necker's time, there were about eight hundred asylums, hospitals and charitable institutions, with one hundred thousand or one hundred and ten thousand inmates. (Peuchet, ibid., 256.) For lack of care and food they die in myriads, especially foundlings, the number of which increases enormously: in 1790, the figures do not exceed 23,000; in year IX., the number surpasses 62,000, (Peuchet, 260): "It is a 'perfect deluge,'" say the reports; in the department of Aisne, there are 1,097 instead of 400; in that of Lot-et-Garonne, fifteen hundred, (Statistiques des prÉfets de l'Aisne, Gers, Lot-et-Garonne), and they are born only to die. In that of Eure, after a few months, it is six out of seven; at Lyons, 792 out of 820; (Statistique des Prefets du Rhone et de l'Eure). At Marseilles, it is ´600 out of 618; at Toulon, 101 out of 104; in the average, 19 out of 20. (Rocquam, "Etat de France au 18e Brumaire," p.33. Report of FranÇois de Nantes.) At Troyes, out of 164 brought in in year IV., 134 die; out of 147 received in year VII., 136 die. (Albert Babeau, II., 452.) At Paris, in year IV., out of 3,122 infants received 2,907 perish. (Moniteur, year V., No. 231.)—The sick perish the same. "At Toulon, only seven pounds of meat are given each day to eighty patients; I saw in the civil Asylum," says FranÇois de Nantes, "a woman who had just undergone a surgical operation to whom they gave for a restorative a dozen beans on a wooden platter." (Ibid., 16, 31, and passim, especially for Bordeaux, Caen, AlenÇon, St. LÔ, etc.)—As to beggars, these are innumerable: in year IX., it is estimated that there are 3 or 4,000 by department, at least 300,000 in France. "In the four Brittany departments one can truly say that a third of the population live at the expense of the other two-thirds, either by stealing from them or through compelling assistance." (Rocquain, "Report by BarbÉ-Marbois," p.93.) 3rd. In year IX., the Consells-generaux are called upon to ascertain whether the departments have increased or diminished in population since 1789. ("Analyse des procÉs-verbaux des Conseils-Generaux de l'an XI." In four volumes.) Out of 58 which reply, 37 state that the population with them has diminished; 12, that it has increased; 9, that it remains stationary. Of the 22 others, 13 attribute the maintenance or increase of population, at least for the most part, to the multiplication of early marriages in order to avoid conscription and to the large number of natural children.—Consequently, the average rate of population is kept up not through preserving life, but through the substitution of new lives for the old ones that are sacrificed. Bordeaux, nevertheless, lost one-tenth of its population, Angers one-eighth, Pau one-seventh, Chambery one-fourth, Rennes one-third. In the departments where the civil-war was carried on, Argenton-ChÂteau lost two-thirds of its population, Bressuire fell from 3,000 to 630 inhabitants; Lyons, after the siege, fell from a population of 140,000 thousand to 80,000. ("Analyse des procÉs-verbaux des Conseils-Generaux" and Statistiques des Prefets.")] 42152 (return) |